A two-member bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday referred to a third judge the case of three Independent MLAs who want the assembly Speaker to accept their resignations.
The three MLAs -- K L Thakur, Hoshiyar Singh and Ashish Sharma -- had approached the court seeking its directions to the Speaker to accept their resignations they tendered in March amid a political crisis in the state.
But the division bench comprising Chief Justice M S Ramachandra Rao and Justice Jyotsna Rewal Dua offered differing views on whether the court can issue directions to the Speaker in this regard.
"The matter would now be decided by a third judge to be constituted by the chief justice who would hear the case on this particular point," said Advocate General Anup Rattan.
The division bench of the high court had last week reserved its order on the plea of the three Independent MLAs.
The three MLAs, who had voted in favour of the BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha polls switching political loyalties, had resigned from the assembly on March 22 and joined the BJP next day.
Maintaining that the authority to accept the resignations is vested only with the Speaker under Article 190(3)(b) of the Constitution, Chief Justice Rao declined to give any relief to the petitioners and said that no directions can be issued to the Speaker to take a decision on accepting the resignations within a fixed time frame.
The chief justice said that he has not expressed any opinion on "voluntariness or genuineness" of the resignations.
However, Justice Dua said that "ends of justice would be served" if directions are issued to the Speaker to take decision on resignations in reasonable time, two weeks from the date on which the judgment is intimated to him.
The Independent MLAs' resignations were not accepted as some Congress legislators filed a complaint that these MLAs had resigned under duress, and a notice was issued to them by the Speaker.
